4:30 AM at the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel. Palestinian workers are lining up to come through into Israel to find jobs. Michal Eliyahu, a 20 year old Israeli girl, happens to be on guard duty this morning. She looks at one of the men coming through, and thinks he has kind of a strange look in his eye. As he comes through the gate, he is required to lift up his shirt, along with all the other Palestinian workers, to see if he is wearing an explosive belt. Seems to be fine. Yet she thinks, his look seems so hard. She calls him over to check his papers. They seem forged. She signals the other soldiers near her to jump him.
Hidden under his boxer shorts was strapped a large explosive belt. Miraculously they got him in time. That time.

But not the next time.

2:44 PM, same day, at the square in front of town hall in Beer Sheva. Bus number 6, loaded with passengers, explodes into flames with a boom.
50 meters away, Yakov Cohen, driving bus number 12, hears the boom and sees the black cloud rise up from bus #6. For a moment he is confused. Then he realizes it might be a terrorist bomb. He starts to speed up to get his bus away.
Then he has another strange thought: what if there is another terrorist on my bus? He decides to stop the bus. He opens the door and shouts to passengers to get off. Several people jump off the bus. 30 seconds have gone by since the first blast when bus 12 also explodes. Those who ran for the door were saved.

The count as I write this is 16 dead, with about 80 wounded. One of the wounded is a 20-year-old girl, member of one of the Messianic congregations in Beer Sheva. A small box in the Israeli papers shows a picture of Hamas supporters in Gaza laughing and dancing for joy at the news. (I personally agree with Prime Minister Sharon that Israel should get out of that hellhole as fast as possible and seal off the border.) What depravity!

The two suicide terrorists were from the Hamas cell in Hebron, seemingly operating under instructions from Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israeli troops moved this evening into Hebron. There is a concern as to whether this may lead to an escalation of conflict with Hezbollah.

Since the Intifada broke out 4 years ago in October of 2000, there have been 1,008 innocent Israelis who have been killed by terrorist attacks. 190 days ago a suicide terrorist in Jerusalem blew up bus 14a, killing 10 people. Since then there has been relative security, with only smaller terrorist attacks succeeding. Why has there been that quiet? One of the obvious answers is that the military operations against the terror cells, and the security fence, have done a good job.

The difference this time is that Beer Sheva is 60 kilometers south of where the security fence has left off, and Hebron had not had an army offensive come in to break the terrorist infrastructure. That fact implies an inherent justification for both the security fence and the army operations.

How bizarre that the international court of "justice" of the UN found it proper to denounce the security fence, but does nothing against hideous terror which is killing and maiming thousands of innocent civilians!